AI for finance and accounting teams
Where AI speeds up finance work, and where the numbers still need a person's sign-off.
Finance runs on figures that other people rely on being right. AI is useful for drafting and first-pass checking. It never approves a number, closes a period or files anything on its own.
Five real workflows
Where AI actually helps.
- 01
Month-end commentary
Drafts the narrative behind the numbers from the figures and variances you provide.
- You keep
- Checking every figure against the source system and approving the commentary before it goes out.
- Try this week
- Give it last month's variance report, ask for a first draft of the commentary, then mark up what it got wrong.
- 02
Reconciliation reviews
Compares two sets of figures you provide and lists where they don't match.
- You keep
- Investigating each mismatch and deciding how it is resolved and recorded.
- Try this week
- Paste in two short lists of transactions you'd reconcile by hand anyway, ask it to list the differences, then check the list line by line.
- 03
Invoice and expense queries
Drafts the first reply to a routine query about an invoice, payment or expense claim, from the details you give it.
- You keep
- Anything involving a dispute, a refund, or an exception to policy.
- Try this week
- Take one routine query you'd normally answer from memory, draft a reply with it, then check the details against your records.
- 04
Board and management reporting
Restructures a full report into a shorter summary for a non-finance audience, from the report you provide.
- You keep
- Every figure and every judgement call in the summary, and the final sign-off.
- Try this week
- Take last quarter's report and ask for a one-page summary written for someone outside finance.
- 05
Process documentation
Drafts or updates a procedure document from your notes on how a process actually runs.
- You keep
- Confirming the procedure matches your controls and your auditor's expectations.
- Try this week
- Describe one process from memory, ask for a written step-by-step procedure, then correct it against what you actually do.
Handle with care
Rules for finance and accounting teams, not fear.
- Client and company financial data
Figures, account numbers and financial records stay inside tools your organisation has approved for that data.
- A person signs every number
AI drafts commentary and first-pass comparisons. A qualified person checks every figure against source records before anything is reported, filed or sent.
- No AI approvals
Payments, journal entries and account closes are approved by a person with the authority to do so, never by an AI tool.
- Audit trail
Anything AI drafts that ends up in a report or filing is kept alongside the source data it was built from, so the numbers can be checked later.
Where to start
The right size of first step.
Team AI workshop
From $2,500
Finance teams share tools and controls across the whole team. A workshop sets shared rules for what goes into AI and what a person always checks, before anyone drafts a report with it.
Related